BRONZINO, Agnolo

This noblewoman is most likely a member of the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence in the mid-sixteenth century. Her ornate and costly attire establish her as an aristocrat. She holds herself rigidly with the controlled demeanour that distinguishes portraits of members of Cosimo’s court.

Tucked in the corner of the panel, the small blond boy was an afterthought, added by Bronzino in a second campaign of painting. X-radiography has revealed that the woman had first stood alone with her proper right hand placed against her dress.

According to Vasari, this small devotional painting was commissioned by Filippo di Averardo Salviati (1513-1572). It was most likely destined for a private chapel in the Salviati villa.

This jewel-like painting displays the extreme refinement of execution and luxury of materials characteristic of Florentine Mannerism, with ‘disegno’ (drawing), sculptural modelling of forms, and enamel-like finish apparent in every detail. The entire upper half of the composition is a deep landscape of lakes and hills, above which stretches a vast blue sky that Bronzino painted in expensive lapis lazuli. To the right, an angel announcing the birth of Christ to a single shepherd hovers in the sky, and in the foreground five putti fly in celebration directly over the Nativity scene.

This small portrait of Alessandro was executed by the workshop of Bronzino. In 1532, Alessandro became the first Medici duke, the result of a pact between his father, now Pope Clement VII, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The tyrannical and illegitimate duke, whose African features suggest his mother’s origin, was murdered by his pretender -cousin, the wicked Lorenzaccio, when he was twenty-six years old.

The painting was commissioned by the Prince Regent Francesco de’ Medici.

This complex allegory represents Happiness (in the centre) with Cupid, flanked by Justice and Prudence. At her feet are Time and Fortune, with the wheel of destiny and the enemies of peace lying humiliated on the ground. Above the head of Happiness is Fame sounding a trumpet, and Glory holding a laurel garland. This Happiness, with the cornucopia, is a triumph of pink and blue; the naked bodies of the figures are smooth, almost stroked by the colour as if they were precious stones - round and well-defined those of the young women, haggard and leaden that of the old man.

The altarpiece currently in the chapel, depicting the Lamentation, is a replica Bronzino made in 1553 of his 1545 original (which was sent to France as a diplomatic gift). Bronzino also removed the original flanking panels of St John the Baptist and St Cosmas and replaced them with side panels depicting the Annunciation.

This image is a digital reconstruction of the probable original appearance of the altar wall of the Cappella di Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, with Bronzino’s first version of the Lamentation (oil on wood, 268 x 173 cm, now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on) and his John the Baptist (oil on wood, 147 x 52 cm, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles).

Bronzino’s formal dependence on Michelangelo’s famous Pietà in St. Peter’s for the body of Christ might associate it with cold stone, thus reinforcing the figure’s deathlike traits.

The altarpiece currently in the chapel, depicting the Lamentation, is a replica Bronzino made in 1553 of his 1545 original (which was sent to France as a diplomatic gift and is now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on). Bronzino also removed the original flanking panels of St John the Baptist and St Cosmas and replaced them with side panels depicting the Annunciation.

In this painting Orpheus’s features resemble those of the young Duke Cosimo as depicted by Bronzino in official portraits a few years later. The nude Orpheus, poet and musician of Greek mythology, is shown resting the bow of his viol after having calmed Cerberus, the three-headed hound of the underworld. The source of his body is the ancient marble fragment, now in the Vatican, known as the Torso Belvedere.

It is assumed, although not documented, that the painting was made for the ceremonies surrounding the July 1539 wedding of Cosimo to Eleonora di Toledo, the daughter of Charles V’s viceroy in Naples.

You can view some depictions of Orpheus taming the animals.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Cristoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo, Act I, Orpheus’ aria in G Major

Cosimo I dei Medici (Florence 1519-1574) son of Maria Salviati and Giovanni dei Medici, called Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, was duke of Florence since 1537 and first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569 to his death. In this portrait he is about 25 years old, wearing his glittering armour, that points out his political ability and his power as a ruler-commander who would have enlarged and fortified the Florentine State.

This painting, slightly wooden and less polished than all the other portraits with which Bronzino consigned the members of the Medici family to posterity, must now be regarded as the original of a long series of replicas. (There are less inspired replicas in the Galleria Palatina, the gallery of Kassel and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.) Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the painting is the skilful rendering of the armour, the flashing reflections of the metal and the hand resting languidly on the helmet. It is very beautiful in the firm drawing and the hard polish of the planes to an almost metaphysical effect.

The painting is one of some twenty-five similar works mainly produced by Bronzino’s workshop to be used as state portraits, based on a prototype, now in Sidney, dated 1544.

This fresco features the most important moment in the history of the Jews: their escape from Egypt and therefore the liberation of the people of God. While their enemies drown in the Red Sea, the Jews look on safely from the shores, whilst in the foreground we see the episode in which Moses (upon divine inspiration) designates Joshua as his successor.

In the Crossing of the Red Sea, Moses, seen crouching and gesticulating on the right in a pose highly dependent on Michelangelo’s sculpture of the same subject, is about to drop his hand after having led the Israelites out of their exile in Egypt; pharaoh’s defeated horsemen drawn in the returning waters. The story could refer to the Medici’s rightful return to power after repeated exiles and an overt indication of the fate awaiting those who opposed them. The presence of an obviously pregnant woman to the right and behind Moses promises a fecund period of Medicean and Florentine renewal.

In the Crossing of the Red Sea, Moses, seen crouching and gesticulating on the right in a pose highly dependent on Michelangelo’s sculpture of the same subject, is about to drop his hand after having led the Israelites out of their exile in Egypt.

This large altarpiece was commissioned from Bronzino by Cosimo I de’ Medici for the Observant Monastery in Cosmopoli. The work was started in 1560 and it was completed at the end of 1565.

The state of preservation of the painting is very poor. The decline of the aging artist, who relied increasingly on assistants, can be seen in the complex composition.

This portrayal of the Deposition, although it depicts all the characters typically shown when Jesus is being taken down from the cross, more correctly should be characterized as a Lamentation and is an excellent example of late Mannerism or Maniera.

The painting was originally commissioned to be the altarpiece for the chapel of Eleonora of Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Shortly after it was completed in 1545, Eleonora’s husband, Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, shipped the picture to Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, a chief counselor of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as a diplomatic gift. Granvelle installed it in his private chapel in Besan�on. In 1834 it became a part of the collection of the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts in Besan�on. After sending the original to Granvelle in 1545, Cosimo requested a copy for Eleonora’s chapel that Bronzino painted eight years later in 1553. The second version is the one found in the Palazzo Vecchio today.

To accompany the original altarpiece, Bronzino painted side panels depicting John the Baptist (the patron saint of Florence) on the left and St Cosmas (a patron saint of the Medici family and Cosimo’s name-saint) on the right. At some point between 1545 and 1553, Eleonora requested that Bronzino replace the side panels of the saints with more pious panels depicting the Annunciation. These Annunciation panels can be viewed in Eleonora’s chapel today.

The original side panels of the saints were considered lost until the John the Baptist panel resurfaced in 1951. It is now housed in the Getty Center. A fragment of the St Cosmas panel was only recently rediscovered in a private collection.

The picture shows the original version of the painting.

By about 1540 Bronzino had undoubtedly become the darling of the Medici court and Florentine aristocracy, not least thanks to his literary talents, for he was also poet. He alternated his production of smooth, almost crystalline portraits, with noteworthy decorative schemes, such as the frescos in the Medici villas, the redecoration of the private apartments in the Palazzo Vecchio or designing tapestries for the Grand Duke. From 1560 onward, he produced more religious paintings for altars in the major Florentine churches. These reveal his limits as a painter.

This altarpiece was executed for the Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The chapel is located on the second floor of the palace and it served as the private chapel of the duchess, Eleonora of Toledo, daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, and wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici. The painting occupied the end wall of the small chapel flanked by St John the Baptist and St Cosmas.

The painting was finished in 1545 and was sent in the same year to Besan�on to the private secretary of Emperor Charles V with whom Cosimo had important negotiations. Since 1553 a replica by Bronzino replaces the altarpiece. Later the two side panels were also replaced by the figures of an Annunciation.

The picture shows the replica of the painting.

This portrait of Garc�a de’Medici (1547–1562), third son of Cosimo de’Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, is an excellent example of the scant interest in the depiction of children prior to the Enlightenment period. Bronzino offers a faithful rendering of a child’s small, undefined features, but presents him with the same distant, impassive pose used for adult portraits of the Florentine court ambit. Garc�a is seen here above all as an heir to the dukedom of Tuscany and for this reason the artist omits any expression or gesture that may encourage us to see a child.

The portrait is a workshop production, a fact most clearly evident in the execution of the child’s hands and clothing, which lack the precision and lustre typical of Bronzino’s hand. He is very likely to have intervened on the face, in which, however, he seems to have used a stencil.

Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo was painted soon after she married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539. Duchess Eleonora is wearing a luxurious dress, in which she probably entered Florence for the first time after the wedding. Her right hand is adorned with two rings: the large diamond was presented to her by Cosimo at the wedding, the small seal ring is provided with her personal impress.

Daughter of viceroy of Naples Don Pedro di Toledo, Eleonora married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539 and died in 1562. In this picture, datable around 1545, she is portrayed with one of their eight sons, the young John, born in 1543 and died, as his mother of malaria, in 1562. The intense blue of the background and the stateliness of the figure enhance the preciousness of Eleonora’s dress (for long time, erroneously believed her sepulture cloth), while her aristocratic beauty betrays a sense of melancholy.

It was painted towards 1545, at the happiest moment of Bronzino’s activity as a portrait painter. The diligent and frankly enjoyed description of the details of the costume are transfigured, through the geometrical simplification and the calm fixity of the light, into a vision of an almost ecstatic detachment.

In this work, which is his most important Medici portrait and is technically a tour de force, the elaborate brocaded gown seems as much the subject of the portrait as Eleonora herself. Archeological work in the tomb of Eleonora has revealed fragments of the dress worn in this portrait.

This small portrait of the young Ferdinando was executed by the workshop of Bronzino. When Ferdinando I succeeded Francesco in 1587, he renounced his cardinalate and married the French princess Christine of Lorraine.

This small portrait of Garcia was executed by the workshop of Bronzino. Garcia recalls in his name his mother’s background. Daughter of the wealthy viceroy of Spain at Naples, Eleonora brought a consciousness of station to the newly elevated Medici. Cosimo would lose Eleonora, fifteen-year old Garcia, and another son, Giovanni, all in 1562.

The Miracle of the Spring and the Gathering of Manna show women and mothers offering life-giving water to their children, while Moses as ruler provides for his people as they gather and preserve food. The woman’s tasks for her family are defined visually.

Visible swoops of the brush describe the armors’s damascening with the aristocratic dash known as sprezzatura. By implication, the teenage nobleman and future condottiere (military leader) is endowed with the same quality - despite his winsome expression. Helmet and codpiece complete the ensemble. Compared with such mannered treatment, the naturalism with which the handsome hound is rendered is startling.

For this painting Bronzino used Pontormo’s very influential composition of the portrait of Francesco Guardi as a halberdier.

This work, Vasari informs us, was executed on the commission of Bartolomeo Panciatichi and this is confirmed by the family coat-of-arms which can be seen on a high tower forming part of the background landscape.

The painting has a structure which is dynamic, abstract, yet at the same time frozen by sharp outlines, typical of Bronzino. Everything is harmoniously arranged in a great compositional balance, albeit of considerable complexity. In the foreground the group of the Virgin and St Joseph is built up with revolving movements, which are restrained below by the extremely smooth bodies of the two children. The delicate face of the Madonna, her almost chiseled hair, and the pose and form of her hands, closely resemble elements in Bronzino’s famous portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi.

The grandiose and tormented plasticity of Michelangelo is here interpreted, by means of the smooth polish of the planes under a motionless, marble light, in pseudo-classic taste.

Vasari writes on this picture: “For the same man (Ser Carlo di Michele Gherardi from Pistoia) he painted a picture of Our Lady that is one of the finest things he has ever done, for its design and relief are extraordinary.”

The painting is named the Stroganoff Holy Family after its former owner.

The painting is signed on the stone under the baby Jesus’s left foot: BROZINO FIORETINO.

The painting is signed on the stone under the baby Jesus’s left foot: BROZINO FIORETINO.

In this Holy Family, the most successful of his early works and long attributed to Pontormo, Bronzino attempted to accommodate his master’s style, but his manner is less fluent, his vision more literal and his response to the subject-matter less sensitive.

This is probably a portrait by the workshop.

This drawing once was considered a Pontormo self-portrait. It is highly finished, suggesting that either Bronzino was planning a painting of the artist or that he was using Pontormo as a model to work out the pose for a commission from a Florentine patrician. In fact, Bronzino later used the same pose in his Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi. The relationship to Michelangelo’s statue of Giuliano de’ Medici is striking.

Laura Battiferri, a poetess, was the wife of Bartolomeo Ammanati the sculptor.

The sitter of this portrait was identified as Lorenzo Lenzi, called il Lauro, the son of a prominent Florentine family. (Lauro is the masculine form of Laura, the ideal lady to whom Petrarch dedicated amatory verses.) The youth in the portrait holds an open book inscribed with sonnets by Petrarch on the right and Benedetto Varchi on the left - where the sitter’s thumb suggestively overlaps the word “Poeta” bringing the viewer’s attention to the verse and its author.

This small portrait was executed by the workshop of Bronzino. Lucrezia’s mother, the duchess Eleonora was also very fond of pearls. Lucrezia wears a stylishly slashed gown; the stiff collar close to the neck is in the constraining Spanish fashion - like the girl’s upbringing. The youngest ducal Medici daughter married Alfonso II d’Este in 1560, the last duke of Ferrara, and grandson of Lucrezia Borgia.

This is one of the last works of Bronzino. On the left of the fresco, beneath the statue of Mercury, Bronzino painted a self-portrait together with two portraits of his master, Pontormo, and his pupil, Alessandro Allori.

The Israelites, discontented with life in the desert, spoke out against God and Moses. They were punished with a plague of poisonous snakes which only increased their hardships. Many died of snakebite. When the people repented, Moses sought God’s advice how they should be rid of the snakes. He was told to make an image of one and set it on a pole. Whoever was bitten would be cured when he looked upon the image. Moses accordingly made a serpent of brass on a tau-shaped (T) pole, which proved to have a miraculous curative effect.

In the Miracle of the Brazen Serpent mothers are caring for their children, and women are helping one another. The biblical episode has a Medici dimension since the family name promises healing power (medici is Italian for “doctors”).

This drawing is a modello for the vault fresco in the Cappella di Eleonora, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

This drawing is a modello for the vault fresco in the Cappella di Eleonora, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

The altarpiece was originally in the Cavalcanti Chapel of the church Santo Spirito in Florence. This is one of the best of the artist’s late religious products. The still-lifes and the landscape in the background are noteworthy.

This painting represents Bronzino’s early style. It is a closed composition of sculptural masses. Linear contours, sometimes precisely drawn in Quattrocento style, isolate features, anatomical details, and drapery folds. Even the distant landscape - a rare feature in Bronzino’s art - looks Quattrocentesque in the stylisation of trees and hills. Calvary at the left and a small wood at the right anchor the arc of the horizon, locking it to the upper corners of the frame; in the lower corners Christ, his limbs stiffened in rigor mortis, fits into the left, and the Magdalen into the right.

This close-up executed by the workshop of Bronzino is a copy of Raphael’s much-copied portrait in the Uffizi of the erudite and pleasure-loving Medici pontiff who restored his family to power in 1512. Leo X reigned during a dramatic time in the Roman Catholic Church: in October 1517, a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed his challenge to a church door in Wittenberg.

This painting of Andrea Doria, the Genoese condottiere who commanded the combined fleets of Venice, the Pope and the Emperor in their victory over the Turks, is a significant example of Bronzino’s work as a portraitist of the aristocracy. Bronzino’s more famous portraits of Lucrezia and Bartolomeo Panciatichi, Eleanora of Toledo and Laura Battiferri depict a class that was conscious of its nobility, set in immobile poses, with flawless alabaster skin and sumptuous clothes. In this painting, however, the allusion to ancient lineage had to be balanced by easily recognizable classicising elements, both in style and in the identification of the subject with the marine god. This explains the use of a pictorial repertory derived from Michelangelo as well as from the portraits of Doria by Bandinelli and by Sebastiano del Piombo.

Official portraitist at the Medici court of Cosimo I, Bronzino painted also portraits of members of Florentine aristocracy or upper middle class, as Bartolomeo Panciatichi was. Born in 1507 and died in 1582, he held important public offices and lived in France as ambassador. In this picture he is around thirty years old, austere and proud, sitting before his family palace, whose coat of arm appears on the right. He also commissioned Bronzino to paint the portrait of his wife Lucrezia and the Sacra Famiglia con San Giovannino, both at Uffizi Gallery now.

Here the influence of Parmigianino may be obvious, in the elongated figure and the vigorous line which creates broken surfaces on the sleeves of Bartolomeo Panciatichi. The imposing, idealized structure behind the portrait refers to fifteenth-century styles, while the lucid surfaces of colour define once again all the ideal and intellectual splendour of this man of the court: a work, therefore, totally in keeping with the taste and mentality of the Florentine painter.

The painting was restored in 1970.

The painting portrays Bia, one of the two illegitimate daughters of Cosimo I, who died in 1542 when she was only five years old. It is one of the loveliest portraits executed by Bronzino for the Medici family. The girl, who wears a medallion with the profile of Cosimo around her neck, is portrayed with an expression of lucid fixity, in perfect accord with the enchanted happiness of childhood, and her very slight smile creates a magical air of suspense. The background, abstract as in many other portraits by Bronzino, is of an almost enamelled lapis lazuli.

This portrait is full of allegorical attributes that refer to Cosimo I de’ Medici and convey a message of positive destiny, power, and fame. The medal bears a female figure supported by two spheres - an embodiment of Cosmography and, for contemporaries, an obvious reference to Cosimo. Also featured are the balls from the Medici arms.. The fire in the depth of the painting symbolizes both God’s providence and the desire for glory and action.

This is a replica of the more famous painting in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

The subject, here about thirty-eight, was the daughter of the Spanish Viceroy of Naples and the wife of Duke Cosimo de’Medici, the ruler of Florence. Bronzino worked most of his career in Florence where he was court painter to the Medici. There are several versions of this portrait.

As a pendant to the contemporaneous portrait of the Duke, Bronzino painted Eleonora in 1555–56. There is no extant original; the three quarter-length version in Washington is a workshop version.

First son of Cosimo I dei Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, Francesco (Florence 1541-1587) succeeded his father to the throne in 1574 and became the second Grand Duke of Tuscany. Executed in 1551 with the portraits of his sister Maria and his young brother Giovanni, the picture shows Francesco approximately at the age of ten, keeping a letter and dressed as a noble child.

This little smiling child has been identified as Giovanni, fourth son of the Grand Duke Cosimo I dei Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. The picture is notable for the spontaneous expression of the boy, a character that rarely can be found in Bronzino’s portraits. It is also remarkable for the crispness of the line and the almost stony polish of the composition, which was probably the prototype for a large number of later replicas.

The boy is dressed in a sumptuous red satin tunic with gold trimmings. His smile reveals two small teeth and in his chubby hands, portrayed with striking naturalism, he holds a colourful little bird. The sphere pendant and the amulet he wears suggested some critics to recognize this child as his younger brother Garzia, born in 1547, to whom could maybe belong these jewels.

Lucrezia di Gismondo Pucci married in 1528 Bartolomeo Panciatichi, whose portrait was probably painted in pendant with this one about 1540. Bronzino describes her beautiful dress, enhancing her aristocratic dignity and her elegance: the long gold necklace the lady wears includes small plates where are legible the words “Sans fin amour dure”, alluding to love and faithfulness.

As is typical of Bronzino’s art, the lady is dressed sumptuously in warm pink satin and dark velvet. A book is held between her aristocratic hands and her severe, pure face is utterly devoid of any naturalistic beauty. The artist makes this lady of a refined and cultured Florentine society an idealized symbol of chaste beauty (note the delicately, but also chastely gathered hair) and high spirituality.

The portraits of Bartolomeo and Lucrezia Panciatichi mark the transition between the youthful style under the influence of Pontormo and that of the maturity of Bronzino as exemplified in his Medici portraits.

The young Ludovico Capponi (1534-1614) is depicted at the age of seventeen. His black and white clothes allude to the colours of his family’s coat-of-arms.

First-born of Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, Maria was born in 1540 and died in 1557 at the age of seventeen. The picture is datable around 1551 as is mentioned in letter written in that year by Bronzino to Cosimo I. Once again the painter realized a portrait psychologically closed emphasizing just nobility, beauty and dignity of the person.

This painting belongs to an impressive series of later portraits, dating from the 1550s. Known as the Portrait of a Man with a Statuette of Venus, its sitter has recently been identified as Pierantonio Bandini (born 1514), one of the wealthiest and most prominent Florentine bankers living in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century. The blue figure of a “Venus Pudica” (modest Venus) may refer to Pierantonio’s collecting interests and to the antiquities recorded at his property at Monte Cavallo, Rome.

The heavy-lidded Pope Clement VII, the illegitimate son of the dashing Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, succeeded his first cousin Giovanni, who reigned as Leo X, in no less tumultuous times.

This painting by the workshop of Bronzino is derived from Raphael’s triple portrait of the Medici prelate-cousins.

The painting is signed and dated on the base of the column, where the inscription reads, “STE. COUMNA II. IL BRO(N)ZI(NO) FLO. FAC. MDXLUI”. The date of 1546 would lead one to place the painting at the period of Bronzino’s Roman sojourn. Likewise, the influences of Sebastiano del Piombo and Michelangelo, evident in this portrait, point to Rome. Nevertheless, the prototype for the portrait type of the military commander can be found in Titian’s portrait of Guidubaldo della Rovere in the Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti) in Florence. Bronzino’s Colonna assumes the same pose as the sitter in the 1530 della Rovere portrait. The hypothesis that Bronzino executed the painting in Florence was confirmed as fact in 1981.

Colonna, though a Roman, served Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici as lieutenant general of the Tuscan army. He was, moreover, a member (as was Bronzino himself) of the Florentine Academy. Colonna died in Pisa in March of 1548, and on the twentieth of that month he received the tribute of an honorary funeral in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The written accounts of this ceremony record that a portrait of the deceased was present: it must have been the one executed by Bronzino. The beautiful frame carries carved symbols that pertain to the art of war and allude to the sitter’s qualities as a military commander.

Some critics assumed that the sitter is Eleonora of Toledo, however, she is probably a wealthy Florentine lady.

William Hazlitt, writing in 1823, described the colours of the costume worn by the sitter in this memorable portrait as resembling ‘the leaves and flower of the water-lily, and so clear’. The drawing and modelling are equally assured in the firm delineation of the features and the gentle modulation of light. The tilt of the head and the angle of the shoulders provide a distinctive characterisation for this unknown figure. Similar attention has been given to the costume with its slashed sleeves, puff shoulders, embroidered chemise and elegant headgear. The artist has combined the simplicity of form, attention to detail and high degree of finish often associated with his work. However, it lacks the abstract qualities of Bronzino’s mature portraits which transcend a feeling of reality in favour of the metaphysical.

An attribution to Bronzino has not been universally accepted and some scholars have favoured an artist from north Italy, specifically from Emilia or Lombardy. The mitigating factor in such an argument lies in the costume which is not Central Italian in style. If the portrait is by Bronzino, then it must be early in date, between the Portrait of a Lady with a Lap-dog (Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut) or the Portrait of a Boy with a Book, dating from the early 1530s (Milan, Castello Sforzesca, Trivulzio collection), and the Portrait of a Young Man with a Lute (Florence, Uffizi) or the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli, dating from the mid-1530s (Berlin, Staatliche Museen). It was at the beginning of this decade that Bronzino worked in Pesaro for the court of Urbino (1530-2) and it is possible that he took the opportunity to travel in Emilia, to places like Bologna, Ferrara or Modena. Alternatively, north Italian fashions could have been seen in the Marches, either at Urbino itself or in Pesaro, owing to the strong dynastic connections between Italian courts.

This painting is one of the most important works of Italian Mannerist portraiture. It shows the early mastery of Agnolo Bronzino, the congenial favourite pupil of Pontormo, to whom the portrait has been erroneously attributed. The young woman probably belonged to one of the leading Florentine families. Her self-confidence and high social status find expression in the picture’s bold composition: the placement of the armrest parallel to the bottom edge and the ingenious lighting of both the figure and her architectural backdrop serve to keep the viewer at the proper distance.

During the 1540s Bronzino painted a few portraits of other sitters, which are stylistically related to his Medici portraits of this decade, although decidedly more individualistic. They include Portrait of a Girl with a Missal (c. 1545; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), the Portrait of a Young Man with a Statuette (c. 1545; Mus�e du Louvre, Paris), and the Portrait of Cosimo’s general, Stefano Colonna (1546; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome).

During the 1540s Bronzino painted a few portraits of other sitters, which are stylistically related to his Medici portraits of this decade, although decidedly more individualistic. They include Portrait of a Girl with a Missal (c. 1545; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), the Portrait of a Young Man with a Statuette (c. 1545; Mus�e du Louvre, Paris), and the Portrait of Cosimo’s general, Stefano Colonna (1546; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome).

During the 1540s Bronzino painted a few portraits of other sitters, which are stylistically related to his Medici portraits of this decade, although decidedly more individualistic. Though the woman on the present portrait cannot be definitively identified, she was likely affiliated with the Medici court. Bronzino emphasizes wealth, status, and courtly refinement above personality or individualized expression. The plain background further accentuates the work’s monumentality and grandeur, despite its small scale. The hand placed against the chest with elegantly spread fingers extends back to an ancient Greek pose of modesty, here emphasizing the proper comportment of a woman of high status. The sitter wears a linen partlet (collar) delicately embroidered in matt stitch, part of which is, like her cuffs, trimmed in fine lace.

In addition to work as official painter at the Medici Court, Bronzino also worked as a portrait painter for the families of the nobility and middle class. This portrait of an unidentified young girl with a Missal is an example of this activity.

Bronzino achieved his greatest distinction in these years as a portrait painter, and by the early 1540s he had become the leading exponent in Florence. The Portrait of a Young Man is one of Bronzino’s greatest portraits. The self-possessed aloofness of the sitter and the austere elegance of the Palace interior are hallmarks of the courtly style of portraiture he created for Medicean Florence. Although the sitter cannot be identified, he is likely a member of Bronzino’s close circle of literary friends. The book held by the sitter in the portrait, the fanciful table and chair, with their grotesque decorations, introduce intentionally witty and capricious motifs: visual analogues to the sorts of literary conceits enjoyed by this cultivated society.

For this painting Bronzino used Pontormo’s very influential composition of the portrait of Francesco Guardi as a halberdier.

This painting belongs to an impressive series of later portraits, dating from the 1550s. It is a half-length portrait of a dark-haired, bearded young man attired in a richly brocaded blackish purple coat, a white embroidered collar, a black cape, and a black velvet hat with a whitish gray feather. He is depicted full face against a plain gray background; his eyes look slightly to the right. His left arm crosses in front of his body, and both hands rest on the golden hilt of a sword, visible at lower left.

Braccio di Bartolo, also called Morgante was the most famous of the five buffoons who lived at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici. He spent most of his life in the Palazzo Pitti. He was a very popular character during Cosimo I’s rule; he was famous and well-liked because of his sharp, witty tongue. Bronzino painted full-length nude portrait of him, with the front on one side, and the back on the other side of the same canvas. The canvas portrays the dwarf as a “fowler”, or bird-catcher, as he was not allowed to hunt larger animals, this being an activity reserved for characters of higher ranks.

The character is portrayed respectively from the front and back at two subequent moments of the action: at the front we see him before the hunt, holding an owl in a snare to be used as a bait to capture a jay that is flying in the air. Two scarce swallowtail butterflies cover his genitals. From behind, we see him just about to turn towards the viewer, eager to proudly show off his prey.

During the 19th century, Bronzino’s painting was heavily restored, which turned the dwarf into the god Bacchus. The original appearance of the canvas was restored in 2010.

The portrait is now on display in a special case in the Apollo Room in the Palatine Gallery.

In addition to Bronzino’s dual-sided portrait, other works featuring Morgante worth a mention include the marble sculpture by Valerio Cioli for the Bacchino Fountain in the Boboli Gardens, which portrays him straddling a turtle, and the bronze sculpture by Giambologna for the small fountain in the roof garden of the Loggia dei Lanzi, which depicts him riding a sea monster and is on view in the Bargello Museum today.

Braccio di Bartolo, also called Morgante was the most famous of the five buffoons who lived at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici. He spent most of his life in the Palazzo Pitti. He was a very popular character during Cosimo I’s rule; he was famous and well-liked because of his sharp, witty tongue. Bronzino painted full-length nude portrait of him, with the front on one side, and the back on the other side of the same canvas. The canvas portrays the dwarf as a “fowler”, or bird-catcher, as he was not allowed to hunt larger animals, this being an activity reserved for characters of higher ranks.

The character is portrayed respectively from the front and back at two subequent moments of the action: at the front we see him before the hunt, holding an owl in a snare to be used as a bait to capture a jay that is flying in the air. Two scarce swallowtail butterflies cover his genitals. From behind, we see him just about to turn towards the viewer, eager to proudly show off his prey.

During the 19th century, Bronzino’s painting was heavily restored, which turned the dwarf into the god Bacchus. The original appearance of the canvas was restored in 2010.

Braccio di Bartolo, also called Morgante was the most famous of the five buffoons who lived at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici. He spent most of his life in the Palazzo Pitti. He was a very popular character during Cosimo I’s rule; he was famous and well-liked because of his sharp, witty tongue. Bronzino painted full-length nude portrait of him, with the front on one side, and the back on the other side of the same canvas. The canvas portrays the dwarf as a “fowler”, or bird-catcher, as he was not allowed to hunt larger animals, this being an activity reserved for characters of higher ranks.

The character is portrayed respectively from the front and back at two subequent moments of the action: at the front we see him before the hunt, holding an owl in a snare to be used as a bait to capture a jay that is flying in the air. Two scarce swallowtail butterflies cover his genitals. From behind, we see him just about to turn towards the viewer, eager to proudly show off his prey.

During the 19th century, Bronzino’s painting was heavily restored, which turned the dwarf into the god Bacchus. The original appearance of the canvas was restored in 2010.

Bronzino had an intimate knowledge of Pontormo’s portrait of Francesco Guardi as a Halberdier, because, as indicated by Vasari, he painted its cover, the Pygmalion and Galatea. The covering of portraits derived from the practice of fitting mirrors within an encasement. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the practice extended to portraits, which were likened to mirrors.

Bronzino’s final works include an altarpiece, the Raising of the Daughter of Jairus. This was mentioned by Borghini as Bronzino’s last painting: probably completed with the assistance of his pupil Alessandro Allori, it strives for a new clarity of expression and gesture.

The painting was mentioned by Borghini as Bronzino’s last painting: probably completed with the assistance of his pupil Alessandro Allori, it strives for a new clarity of expression and gesture.

The altarpiece is signed, and dated 1552.

Appearing to be full-size, this painting demonstrates the skill of the Mannerist painter in fitting a brilliant body-study into a small pictorial space. Artistically, all interest is on the nude, with the nakedness concealed more by the way the figure holds his body than the way he plays with the drapery and the hide mantle. The only symbol in the picture is the Jacob’s staff, in the dark. This is cleverly foreshortened, and thus not the real message of the painting.

Bronzino depicts Saint John the Baptist’s muscular figure in a restricted space, his torso twisted to accommodate the panel’s vertical format which creates a series of strong diagonal accents, zigzagging the length of the painting. This artificial, serpentine pose marks Bronzino’s move away from naturalism toward a more abstract elongation of forms and more stylised figures, a shift which occurred in the 1540s.

The long, vertical format of this work corresponds to its original function as part of a triptych altarpiece in the private chapel of Eleonora di Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Bronzino decorated the chapel between 1540 and 1565, as a celebration of the Medici dynasty. The larger, central panel of the original altarpiece (now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts et d’Arch�ologie, Besan�on, France) depicted the Lamentation, which was flanked by the present painting on the left, and St Cosmas on the right (a fragment of which is today in a private collection). The saints were chosen by Bronzino for their relevance to the Medici - St John was the patron saint of Florence, while St Cosmas was the name saint of Eleonora’s husband, Cosimo de’ Medici.

Four tondos with the Evangelists still adorn the pendentives that once supported the old cupola of the Cappella Capponi in the church of Santa Felicità in Florence. Except for the painting of St John, the precise authorship of the other three portraits has posed considerable problems for scholars. As Vasari only attributes two of the tondi to Bronzino, without specifying which, scholars are still divided over which and how many of them were painted by Bronzino, the apprentice to Pontormo. Probably Bronzino was responsible for the St Matthew with an intense gaze, half-closed mouth, and tousled red hair, painted with thickly laid-on and glowing brushstrokes and enlivened by the strong light that falls on the figure with a swirling crimson cloak, set against the dark background. Probably also Bronzino’s is the St Mark with its palette of yellow and red tones contrasting with the green of the mantle wrapped around the figure, which looks as if it is peering through a window, an idea drawn from the Gospel.

The bald St John with a long beard seems to share the same uneasy and sorrowful humanity lavished on the body of Christ in the Deposition by Pontormo in the same chapel, this tondo can certainly be attributed to Pontormo. St Luke is probably also a contribution by Pontormo.

The figures of the Evangelists, with their distinctly Michelangiolesque flavour, have a vigour deriving from the way their heads are twisted and pushed forward. They are wrapped in ample robes, whose bold colours stand out against the dark backgrounds. This play of strong contrasts, which exalts the delicate outlines of the coloured surfaces, is in keeping with the refined style of the entire decoration of the chapel.

Four tondos with the Evangelists still adorn the pendentives that once supported the old cupola of the Cappella Capponi in the church of Santa Felicità in Florence. Except for the painting of St John, the precise authorship of the other three portraits has posed considerable problems for scholars. As Vasari only attributes two of the tondi to Bronzino, without specifying which, scholars are still divided over which and how many of them were painted by Bronzino, the apprentice to Pontormo. Probably Bronzino was responsible for the St Matthew with an intense gaze, half-closed mouth, and tousled red hair, painted with thickly laid-on and glowing brushstrokes and enlivened by the strong light that falls on the figure with a swirling crimson cloak, set against the dark background. Probably also Bronzino’s is the St Mark with its palette of yellow and red tones contrasting with the green of the mantle wrapped around the figure, which looks as if it is peering through a window, an idea drawn from the Gospel.

The bald St John with a long beard seems to share the same uneasy and sorrowful humanity lavished on the body of Christ in the Deposition by Pontormo in the same chapel, this tondo can certainly be attributed to Pontormo. St Luke is probably also a contribution by Pontormo.

The figures of the Evangelists, with their distinctly Michelangiolesque flavour, have a vigour deriving from the way their heads are twisted and pushed forward. They are wrapped in ample robes, whose bold colours stand out against the dark backgrounds. This play of strong contrasts, which exalts the delicate outlines of the coloured surfaces, is in keeping with the refined style of the entire decoration of the chapel.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (excerpts)

St Sebastian here is portrayed not bleeding from his wounds, but more in the manner of a god of classical mythology or a young, slender Apollo. He is identified by the arrow which he holds in his hand and by the second arrow which cleanly penetrates his side without drawing blood.

The drawing is squared in black chalk for enlargement and cut to an arched top. it relates to the Young Man with a Lute in the Uffizi. This painting is notable for its architectural setting and wood paneling. Pontormo adopted the latter feature for his Alessandro de’ Medici. However, in their preparatory drawings for portraits neither Pontormo nor Bronzino showed any interest in the surroundings in which they placed their sitters.

In the present drawing Bronzino mainly worked out the pose, which is clearly derived from Michelangelo’s statue of Giuliano de’ Medici.

There are numerous portraits of Eleonora (1522-1562) from Bronzino’s workshop, often copies made by pupils from an original by the master. Since the early 1550s Eleonora had begun to show signs of the tuberculosis which would later be the cause of her death.

The Miracle of the Spring and the Gathering of Manna show women and mothers offering life-giving water to their children, while Moses as ruler provides for his people as they gather and preserve food. The woman’s tasks for her family are defined visually.

This painting is one of the leading examples of Mannerism’s complex, inwardly oriented art. Ugolino, scion of a Florentine banking family, is placed in the courtyard of the family palace, where Donatello’s unfinished David is seen. Ugolino wears the dark attire made fashionable by increasing Spanish influence.

Bronzino’s first commission from the Duke was the decoration of a chapel for Duchess Eleonora (the Cappella di Eleonora), which is the major painted decorative ensemble of his career (1540–45). The vault of the chapel is frescoed with St Michael, St John the Evangelist, St Jerome and St Francis; on the walls are frescoes of stories of Moses (the Brazen Serpent, Moses Striking the Rock and the Gathering of Manna and the Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua). There Bronzino embraced an idealizing sculptural style suggesting the influence of the Antique and Michelangelo, which co-exists with passages of naturalism recalling his own earlier style. These frescoes - completely covering the walls of the small chapel (4 m sq.) - are one of the earliest examples of a characteristic type of maniera decoration in which all the wall surfaces are painted with complex, densely interwoven figural and decorative motifs, giving the impression of a jewelled ornament.

The represeented saints on the vault of the Cappella di Eleonora are Michael, Francis, John the Evangelist, and Jerome.

Eleonora saw her chapel as a place to escape the activity of daily life and retreat into prayer. Three saints depicted in the ceiling fresco also withdrew into isolation in order to encounter God: Francis is shown receiving the stigmata; Jerome is reenacting the Passion as a penitent; and John is on Patmos experiencing his vision of the Apocalypse.

The detail shows the spandrel with putto and Justitia.

This painting is a variant on Bronzino’s Venus, Cupid and Time in London, the major allegorical work of his mature years. The Budapest painting, slightly larger than the London picture, is also an allegory of Venus and Cupid, who play with his bow and arrows, and Venus is also set against a light blue drapery, on which lie two masks symbolizing deceit.

In the 1550s, Bronzino’s mythological themes were developed in two further allegories of Venus: Venus, Cupid and Envy (c. 1550; Sz�pmuv�szeti M�zeum, Budapest), which is a simplified and less subtle variant on the Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time of 1544–45 (National Gallery, London), and Venus, Cupid, and a Satyr (c. 1555; Venus’s drapery added later; Galleria Colonna, Rome), painted for Alamanno Salviati.

This work was probably created at the Tuscan court of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici for presentation to the King of France. It was designed as a puzzle, and incorporates symbols and devices from the worlds of mythology and emblematic imagery. It would have made the perfect present for the French king, known for his lusty appetites, yearning after Italian culture and magnificence, and with a liking for heraldry and obscure emblems.

The goddess of love and beauty, identified by the golden apple given to her by Paris and by her doves, has drawn Cupid’s arrow. At her feet, masks, perhaps the symbols of sensual nymph and satyr, seem to gaze up at the lovers. Foolish Pleasure, the laughing child, throws rose petals at them, heedless of the thorn piercing his right foot. Behind him Deceit, fair of face, but foul of body, proffers a sweet honeycomb in one hand, concealing the sting in her tail with the other. On the other side of the lovers is a dark figure, formerly called Jealousy but recently plausibly identified as the personification of Syphilis, a disease probably introduced to Europe from the New World and reaching epidemic proportions by 1500.

The symbolic meaning of the central scene is thus revealed to be unchaste love, presided over by Pleasure and abetted by Deceit, and its painful consequences. Oblivion, the figure on the upper left who is shown without physical capacity for remembering, attempts to draw a veil over all, but is prevented by Father Time - possibly alluding to the delayed effects of syphilis. Cold as marble or enamel, the nudes are deployed against the costliest ultramarine blue, and the whole composition, flattened against the picture plane, recalls Bronzino’s contemporaneous designs for the duke’s new tapestry factories.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

This work was probably created at the Tuscan court of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici for presentation to the King of France. It was designed as a puzzle, and incorporates symbols and devices from the worlds of mythology and emblematic imagery. It would have made the perfect present for the French king, known for his lusty appetites, yearning after Italian culture and magnificence, and with a liking for heraldry and obscure emblems.

The goddess of love and beauty, identified by the golden apple given to her by Paris and by her doves, has drawn Cupid’s arrow. At her feet, masks, perhaps the symbols of sensual nymph and satyr, seem to gaze up at the lovers. Foolish Pleasure, the laughing child, throws rose petals at them, heedless of the thorn piercing his right foot. Behind him Deceit, fair of face, but foul of body, proffers a sweet honeycomb in one hand, concealing the sting in her tail with the other. On the other side of the lovers is a dark figure, formerly called Jealousy but recently plausibly identified as the personification of Syphilis, a disease probably introduced to Europe from the New World and reaching epidemic proportions by 1500.

The symbolic meaning of the central scene is thus revealed to be unchaste love, presided over by Pleasure and abetted by Deceit, and its painful consequences. Oblivion, the figure on the upper left who is shown without physical capacity for remembering, attempts to draw a veil over all, but is prevented by Father Time - possibly alluding to the delayed effects of syphilis. Cold as marble or enamel, the nudes are deployed against the costliest ultramarine blue, and the whole composition, flattened against the picture plane, recalls Bronzino’s contemporaneous designs for the duke’s new tapestry factories.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

This view shows the altarpiece and the frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

In 1540, soon after marrying Eleonora of Toledo, Cosimo de’ Medici moved from the Palazzo Medici into the Palazzo della Signoria, publicly proclaiming his dominance over all civic institutions. Cosimo remodeled the building to accommodate his expanding family and commissioned elaborate decorative programs of the histories of his ancestors, of his own military conquests, and of dynastic portraiture to fill its vast spaces. On the upper floor Cosimo constructed a small cubical chapel for Eleanor’s private devotions, completely decorated by Bronzino with imagery that ostensibly referred to Christian redemption but which barely veiled his dynastic and political intentions. The wall frescoes all depict scenes from the life of Moses: the left-wall frescoes include the Miracle of the Spring (Moses Striking the Rock) and the Gathering of Manna, the right wall is covered by the fresco Crossing of the Red Sea, an uncommon subject in Christian chapels.

The altarpiece currently in the chapel, depicting the Lamentation, is a replica Bronzino made in 1553 of his 1545 original (which was sent to France as a diplomatic gift and is now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on). Bronzino also removed the original flanking panels of St John the Baptist and St Cosmas and replaced them with side panels depicting the Annunciation. The frescoes of the vault represents Sts Michael, John the Evangelist, Jerome and Francis.

For the decoration of the chapel Bronzino applied an unusual technique: the underpainting was true fresco and the finished layer in tempera. The combination of complex figural compositions, rich colours, and elaborate decorative motifs within the chapel’s small space create a bejewelled effect typical of Mannerism as practiced at the court of Cosimo and Eleonora. The style employed by Bronzino in the chapel frescoes resembles the cool, calculated manner which can be seen in his portraits.

This view shows the altarpiece and the frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

In 1540, soon after marrying Eleonora of Toledo, Cosimo de’ Medici moved from the Palazzo Medici into the Palazzo della Signoria, publicly proclaiming his dominance over all civic institutions. Cosimo remodeled the building to accommodate his expanding family and commissioned elaborate decorative programs of the histories of his ancestors, of his own military conquests, and of dynastic portraiture to fill its vast spaces. On the upper floor Cosimo constructed a small cubical chapel for Eleanor’s private devotions, completely decorated by Bronzino with imagery that ostensibly referred to Christian redemption but which barely veiled his dynastic and political intentions. The wall frescoes all depict scenes from the life of Moses: the left-wall frescoes include the Miracle of the Spring (Moses Striking the Rock) and the Gathering of Manna, the right wall is covered by the fresco Crossing of the Red Sea, an uncommon subject in Christian chapels.

The altarpiece currently in the chapel, depicting the Lamentation, is a replica Bronzino made in 1553 of his 1545 original (which was sent to France as a diplomatic gift and is now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on). Bronzino also removed the original flanking panels of St John the Baptist and St Cosmas and replaced them with side panels depicting the Annunciation. The frescoes of the vault represents Sts Michael, John the Evangelist, Jerome and Francis.

For the decoration of the chapel Bronzino applied an unusual technique: the underpainting was true fresco and the finished layer in tempera. The combination of complex figural compositions, rich colours, and elaborate decorative motifs within the chapel’s small space create a bejewelled effect typical of Mannerism as practiced at the court of Cosimo and Eleonora. The style employed by Bronzino in the chapel frescoes resembles the cool, calculated manner which can be seen in his portraits.

The altarpiece currently in the chapel, depicting the Lamentation, is a replica Bronzino made in 1553 of his 1545 original (which was sent to France as a diplomatic gift and is now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on). Bronzino also removed the original flanking panels of St John the Baptist and St Cosmas and replaced them with side panels depicting the Annunciation.

This painting is notable for its architectural setting and wood paneling. Pontormo adopted the latter feature for his Alessandro de’ Medici.